C-MORE is one of 17 National Science Foundation Centers of Science and Technology across the United States. It focuses on the role that marine bacteria and viruses play in sustaining planetary habitability.

“The open sea is the natural laboratory” for oceanographic research, commented UH President M.R.C. Greenwood. Now Hawaiʻi also has a modern, dynamic place designed for the incubators and instrumentation needed to pursue the new frontier of microbial oceanography.

The opening of the new sea-motif inspired facility abutting the Biomedical Sciences Building was the first public event for newly appointed NSF Director Subra Suresh and “a once in a scientific lifetime” dream-come-true for C-MORE Director David Karl.

“It should be a thrilling decade,” Karl predicted after Suresh announced an additional five years of NSF support for C-MORE activities. Suresh lauded the center both for its work in studying the structural, genomic and metabolic diversity of marine microorganisms using the latest advances in technology and computing, and for its outreach and educational activities.

A veteran UH Mānoa oceanographer and member of the National Academy of Sciences and fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, Karl participated in more than 70 major oceanographic cruises around the world, observed on more than 30 submersible dives and made 23 trips to the Antarctic, identifying new microbes that live in harsh environments. Since joining the UH faculty in 1978, he has been principal investigator on more than 80 grants bringing close to $42 million in federal and foundation funds to the university.

“Marine microorganisms sustain planetary survival. They produce most of the oxygen we breathe,” Karl says. They capture solar energy, produce food and sequester carbon dioxide, yet we are largely ignorant about how they live and interact.

The organisms are small in size—less than a hundredth of the thickness of a human hair—but their impact is enormous, Suresh agrees.